The Crisis In Children S Reading How We Can Reverse The Decline

By Michelle Torgerson, CEO of Raising a Reader The latest national assessment of educational progress results reveal a sobering reality: American children’s reading skills have reached new lows with little sign of post pandemic recovery. As reported in The New York Times, 40% of 4th graders and 33% of 8th graders now perform at a below basic level in reading and dash the highest percentages in decades. The implications of this literacy crisis are profound impacting students academic success future job prospects and overall well-being At Raising a Reader, we see this as a call to action for over 25 years we have worked to support families educators and those serving young children in fostering early literacy skills helping... The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results reveal a sobering reality: American children’s reading skills have reached new lows, with little sign of post-pandemic recovery.

The reading crisis in the United States is among the most solvable problems of our time, but as we commit to the work of solving it, let’s understand how we arrived at the current... That galvanizing reality check gets even more stark when we reckon with the proficiency figure for black American kids: just 18 percent are proficient by fourth grade. The primary driver of the reading crisis is a disconnect between the overwhelming scientific evidence on reading, affirmed by researchers across decades of studies, and the still-widespread practices that have shaped what teachers know... As more and more teachers discover the research evidence and square it with what actually happens with the students in their classrooms, many find that they have to move through some guilt, and overcome... Most refocus to find renewed hope of fulfilling their calling to open up learning for a better future when they learn that 95% of students can learn to read with structured literacy methods. It’s not the kids.

It’s not the teachers. It’s the approach, and it can be changed, and the sooner, the better. Ethical individual teachers and school leaders supporting cohorts of educators have become an unstoppable movement toward reading justice for all our kids. Parents are learning what the families of dyslexic learners have known for years: it’s not enough to assume that teachers know how to teach reading or, when it’s not working, to take comfort in... Too many do not, as the 8th-grade national scores in reading make clear. Parents, teachers, and community activists are advocating for kids whose reading potential is underserved and underestimated through racial and socioeconomic inequality, coming together to insist that reading is an undeniable civil right of our...

Every child deserves the joy of learning through literacy, and the denial of that right amounts to preventable harm. Some of you reading this know, while some of you will have to imagine, what it feels like sitting through year after year of school knowing that your inability to decode words must mean... Choosing to act out behaviorally, to withdraw anxiously, to cheat elaborately, to leave altogether, becomes all too common—because these things provide a shield from the slowly unspooling trauma of being the kid who never... We at the Stern Center embrace our role as catalysts in a hopeful yet insistent change movement of parents, teachers, and leaders who are waking up to the powerful opportunity to make a difference... Teachers are bringing their own experiences, instructional wisdom, and commitment to their students to a growing recognition of how discredited methods and implicit biases have left too many students behind. The statistics below make it plain as day: race and socioeconomic status are too often used as an excuse for reading failure, but we who embrace equity of opportunity can commit to a shared...

Contact: Stephaan Harris: Stephaan.Harris@ed.gov, (202) 357-7504 The Nation's Report Card Shows Declines in Reading, Some Progress in 4th Grade Math U.S. Students Not Back to Pre-Pandemic Achievement (Jan. 29, 2025 — Washington, D.C.) The Nation's Report Card released today shows continued declines in reading for U.S. students, compounding a decline in the nation’s reading scores that started prior to the pandemic.

In 2024, average reading scores on The Nation’s Report Card declined by 2 points for both 4th and 8th grade students compared to 2022. This steepens the 3-point decline seen in both grades between 2022 from 2019. Students took the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as The Nation's Report Card or NAEP, between January and March 2024. No state saw gains on NAEP Reading in either grade compared to 2022; only one large urban school district that participates in the voluntary Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) program — Atlanta Public Schools... Illustrations by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff This month, average reading scores for high school seniors — released by the Nation’s Report Card — fell to their lowest level since 1992.

It was the first time that 12th graders had taken the test since the COVID pandemic, and the results showed a widening gap between the highest- and lowest-achieving students. While it may be tempting to chalk up the decline in reading skills to COVID learning loss, the scores continue a slide that predates the pandemic, according to Martin West, academic dean and a... “American students’ literacy skills peaked in roughly the middle of the last decade and have fallen significantly since that time,” he said. In this episode of “Harvard Thinking,” host Samantha Laine Perfas, along with West and other guests, discuss what might be driving the decline and possible strategies for reversing it. West brought up one theory, sparked by a recent report that showed a dwindling number of teens are reading for pleasure. “What could be driving that trend?” he asked.

“I don’t think we have smoking gun evidence that the rise of screen-based childhood is a direct contributor to the literacy trends that we’re seeing. But I’m willing to put it very high on my list of potential suspects.” Reading for pleasure is in "freefall" - dropping over 40% in the last 20 years, warns new research. The "deeply concerning" findings raise urgent questions about the cultural, educational and health consequences of reading less, say scientists. The study, published in the journal iScience, found that daily reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last two decades. Researchers from University College London (UCL) and the University of Florida analyzed data from more than 236,000 Americans.

They say the findings suggest a "fundamental cultural shift" with fewer people carving out time in their day to read for enjoyment. As someone who’s spent years working in the worlds of both K-12 and Higher Education, I’ve witnessed a worrying trend that’s been brewing for over two decades amongst students in both K-12 and Higher... It’s a crisis that gnaws at the very foundation of learning and critical thinking: a reading crisis. My concerns were recently amplified after stumbling upon a thought-provoking piece on “The Average College Student Today” on Substack and an equally unsettling article in the Financial Times by John Burn-Murdoch titled, “Have humans... This isn’t just an educational and learning issue; it’s a societal one that needs to be addressed within our schools and beyond. The simple truth is, reading isn’t happening on the scale it once did.

This isn’t just about preference; it’s a significant problem. Reading serves as a cornerstone for knowledge acquisition across all disciplines and life stages. Without consistent and comprehensive reading, we are collectively losing the ability to acquire crucial contextual and content knowledge, which, as research clearly demonstrates, is foundational for deep understanding. This knowledge is the bedrock for synthesizing information and delving deeply into complex topics. This is something I believe is missing when I am working with students of all ages. Think about it – academic studies consistently show a positive relationship between the amount of reading and the depth of understanding across subjects and age groups (Oliveriera & Santos, 2006; Fillippetti & Lopez, 2016).

This foundational link is essential. Remember that seminal study that illustrated how students with limited general reading skills but extensive knowledge of baseball understood a baseball-related text better than proficient readers who knew little about the sport (Zhu, 2003)? This highlights the power of prior knowledge in comprehension. Individuals comprehend new information more effectively when they possess a foundational understanding of the topic at hand. And it’s not just about understanding individual facts. The process of reading itself facilitates the development of interconnected knowledge structures.

When we read about something we already know a little about, our learning of new vocabulary related to that topic accelerates. It’s a compounding effect where existing knowledge acts as an anchor for new information, leading to a more robust and nuanced understanding. The idea of using “text sets” – related texts focusing on a single theme for an extended period – can further deepen comprehension and solidify knowledge. The Publishers Association and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Publishing have published Turning the page: A plan to revive children’s reading for enjoyment. The report was launched with an event in the House of Lords. Parliamentarians, publishers and representatives from across the books sector heard speeches from Baroness Rebuck, President of the Publishers Association and Incoming CEO of Simon & Schuster UK, Perminder Mann and children’s author and illustrator,...

“Children having access to books – and being encouraged to develop a love of reading – is a hugely important issue. The Turning the Page report makes a range of recommendations to revive children’s reading and I hope they will all be implemented. If we work together, I’m confident we can reverse the worrying drop in children reading for enjoyment.” Baroness Rebuck, Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Publishing, commented: “’Reading for pleasure is the most important indicator of a child or young person’s future success in life including their wellbeing, so we urgently need to course correct the current decline in choosing to... Everyone deserves the gift of reading and this report suggests many ways in which it can be delivered.”

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